BJP vs Congress | How do they fuel their election campaigns? Premium

Analysis of BJP's income, expenses, and donations, including electoral bonds, compared to Congress, showcasing BJP's financial dominance in politics.

Story so far: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been re-elected to power for the third time in June 2024, was armed with 88% of the donations received by political parties in 2023-24. Analysis of the income and expenditure reports, including donations above ₹20,000 declared by the major national parties show that BJP had an income of ₹4340 crore, including ₹2243 crore in individual donations. Of these BJP only spent ₹2211 crore (50.96%) of its income, noted Association for Democratic Reform (ADR). 

The latest set of income and expenditure declarations are the first since the Supreme Court scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme which had collected ₹16,518 crore in 30 tranches since 2018. 

Here’s a look at the political contributions and expenditures of India’s top two national parties.

Contributions to the BJP stand at ₹3967 crore for 2023-24. Of these ‘voluntary contributions’, ₹2243 crore come from 8358 donations over ₹20,000, including ₹856 crore via six electoral trusts. Apart from contributions, BJP’s income also includes ₹369 crore in interest and ₹2.7 crore in fees and subscription.

BJP has received ₹2064 crore from corporate houses in donations while individual donors contributed ₹169 crore. The party also received donations from unions/party units worth ₹1.09 crore, while ₹9.147 crore were from undeclared donors. Also, BJP received ₹1685 crore came from electoral bonds – which constitute 38.84% of the party’s total income. 

A month-wise analysis of the contributions by ADR found that September 2023 and March 2024 were when BJP received its maximum contributions. However, BJP’s declared dates of donations barely amount to ₹85 crore, while dates of 7996 donations worth ₹2158 crore are unknown. The above-mentioned donations are payments made via cheque/DD or bank transfers.

The top donations to BJP were ₹723 crore from Prudent Electoral Trust and ₹127 crore from Triumph Electoral Trust. While which company donated to the BJP via electoral trusts is not known, the top donors to electoral trusts are Arcelormittal Nippon Steel India Ltd (₹100 crore), DLF (₹100 crore), Maatha Projects (₹75 crore), CESC Ltd (₹60 crore) and Maruti Suzuki India (₹60 crore). BJP also saw a leap in electoral trust contributions from ₹265 crore in 2022-23 to ₹723.785 in 2023-24, coinciding with the Lok Sabha election year.